Individual recognition in mice mediated by major urinary proteins
Individual recognition in mice mediated by major urinary proteins
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DOI：
10.1038/414631a
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发表时间：
2001-12-06
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Beynon, RJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hurst, JL;Payne, CE;Beynon, RJ
识别个体的能力对于社会行为的许多方面都是必不可少的，例如维持稳定的社会群体、识别父母-后代或配偶、避免近亲繁殖和调节竞争关系。气味是许多哺乳动物个性信号的主要媒介(1)。在啮齿类动物和人类中，气味复杂性的一个来源可能存在于高度多态的主要组织相容性复合体（MHC）中(2)。小鼠(3)和大鼠(4)的嗅觉灵敏度使它们能够区分MHC内仅在单个基因上不同的同源菌株的尿液气味，尽管化学介质或气味剂是未知的。然而，啮齿动物的尿液也含有一类蛋白质，称为主要尿蛋白（MUPs）(5)，它们结合并释放小的挥发性信息素（6,7）。我们已经证明，野生小鼠中MUPs表达的组合多样性可能与MHC一样大，并且在蛋白质浓度高一百万倍的情况下(8)。在这里，我们在野生家鼠（家鼠）中发现尿MUPs在个体识别机制中发挥重要作用。
The ability to recognize individuals is essential to many aspects of social behaviour, such as the maintenance of stable social groups, parent-offspring or mate recognition, inbreeding avoidance and the modulation of competitive relationships. Odours are a primary mediator of individuality signals among many mammals(1). One source of odour complexity in rodents, and possibly in humans, resides in the highly polymorphic major histocompatibility complex (MHC)(2). The olfactory acuity of mice(3) and rats(4) allows them to distinguish between the urinary odours of congenic strains differing only in single genes within the MHC, although the chemical mediators or odorants are unknown. However, rodent urine also contains a class of proteins, termed major urinary proteins (MUPs)(5), that bind and release small volatile pheromones(6,7). We have shown that the combinatorial diversity of expression of MUPs among wild mice might be as great as for MHC, and at protein concentrations a million times higher(8). Here we show in wild house mice (Mus domesticus) that urinary MUPs play an important role in the individual recognition mechanism.